Violence in Mass Media Essay

Introduction

Nowadays it is noticeable that the word violence is associated to mass media which lead us to think about its effects towards the audience & the community. Day after day the appearances of the violence in the media made it a normal thing to see. In this project the researcher is trying to illustrate the meaning of the media violence, the reason of the violence in the media & if it has a behavioral influence. (Carter & Weaver, 2003) Video games are widely known as an excellent source of entertainment for many youth. Unfortunately, most of today’s widespread video games contain violence, which leads parents and responsible adults to concerns the possible negative effects that could be caused by playing such violence games that has on behavior. (Vessy, Judith A, Lee & joane E., 2000)

Violence in Television

Television violence became a concern of many people and there was a lot of debate about the main purpose of the mass media organizations from it; is it to entertain the audience or is it to manipulate them so they believe what they want them to believe. (Hamilton, 2003) The One thing that we all must worry about is that television does not require specific skills such as reading and writing which mean anyone can access the TV. In addition, contrasting the cinema, TV does not have an age limit to its audience, so it is available to anyone at any time. (Carter & Weaver, 2003) Furthermore, the main targeted audiences of the violence are the adults specially the male adults between the ages of 18 to 34, while the children are not targeted. Despite the fact that the children are not targeted it was sadly discovered that the television violence has reached some kids programs and cartoons. (Hamilton, 2003)

Adolescences and Violence in Television

Adolescences refer to children from the age of 3 to the age of 17. In this age, usually children and young people start to form their personality, their behavior & learn about the basic value and traditions. Recent studies showed that adolescences that are exposed to too much television violence are most likely to have a disturbed behavior in the future. In addition the researchers of the U.S have revealed that there is lots of violence in the kid’s cartoons than the adults programs have. It is noted that cartoons connect violence to brave acts as well as to hilarious acts which makes the kids think that these are an acceptable acts. (Carter & Weaver, 2003)

Adults and Violence in Television

On the other hand, Violence in Television can be seen more in the adults
Television programs. Since adults are responsible of their own desires, Television programs are not restricted about what to broadcast to them. That’s why; we can see the violence in the police crime program, reality crime shows, sports program and news broadcast.

Police Crime Programs

Due to their environment of work police crime dramas & shows are full of violence. As the actresses are trying to imitate what happen in real life they hold guns and use violence to solve the problem. At the beginning of the shows the violence was not intensive, but day after day it was clear that the police dramas and shows depend on the violence to sell it product. (Carter & Weaver, 2003)

Reality Crime Shows

The reality crime shows allows the audience to view the actual portrayal of violence instead of the acting, by using footage and recording that demonstrate the real crime and show it to the public. Although, there was many diverted opinions about the affect of it on the police department because the policemen mostly looked like as if they were the bad guys. (Carter & Weaver, 2003)

Sports Programs

Boxing programs, American football and the rugby these are all types of sports, but what distinguish them is that they are violent sports. However they are considered as the most watched sports around the word. (Carter & Weaver, 2003)

Selling Violence

Entertainment business knows that children and young people represent a huge market. The company in these industries targets Youth in their advertising and marketing violent entertainment products such as violent movies, music and electronic games, and most of them might not be appropriate for them. (Russell O. jones, 2007)

Video games

Video games were presented in the late of 1970s; they were simple, animated interactive games Like “Atari’s”. They were somehow irregular until the late of 1980s. Now with the improved technology there are a lot of high-level graphics of video games presented. (Vessy, Judith A, Lee & joane E., 2000)

Violence effects in Video games

“Children who regularly play video games admit they can be addictive and lead to them acting out the violent scenes that are an intrinsic part of many games.” (Carter & Weaver, 2003) Nevertheless video games are designed to entertain, challenge, and sometimes educate, but most of them includes violent content. We have PlayStations, Nintendo, Xbox’s, PC’s, and more. All of these offers people children or adults to interactive violent experience. More specifically, Video games violence increases aggression in children, adolescents and adults. (Douglas A., Paul J., Jennifer Ruh Linderc & David A. , 2004) Most of the bad effects of video games are accused on the violence they have. Both kids and adults who play more violent video games are more possibly to increase their aggressive feelings, thoughts, and behavior. The effect of video game violence depends on the game shared nature. In many games, children and adults are happy if the game more violent.

They experience the violent with their eyes by (killing, kicking, shooting and stabbing). These active participating in the game, repeating the move and rewarding after achieving the goal or the level, are affective tools for learning behavior. (Tumbokon, 2011) Playing too much of video games make children and adults away from real life, The more time they spends playing video games the poorer they achieve their goals. They may spend less time in doing their daily activity such as sports, reading and interacting with family and friends. Some of video games teach the person the wrong values for example; violent behavior, revenge and aggression. Video games world confuse reality and fantasy. (Tumbokon, 2011) When playing online, kids can catch the bad language and behavior from other players and it could be a vulnerable to online danger to adults and kids.

Conclusion

To conclude, the violence in the mass media is a reality that people all around the world should accept it and try to deal with it. The researcher do not think that fighting the violence will make the mass media organizations stop selling it because violence is a profit source for them. Instead of fighting it people should find solution and other ways to reduce its affects on the audience.